Chapter 195: Final Victor of the Lower Category Battles

Translator: Minotauruz

Yu Wanrou was also deeply concerned with how Qin Lingyu saw her. Before the competition began, she glanced over at the Dawn Sect seating area with a soft gaze that was filled with tears. Unfortunately, the distance was simply too great, and she was unable to clearly see the expressions on Qin Lingyu’s face.

Yu Wanrou bit down on her lower lip, and a trace of frustration flickered across her eyes.

Off the arena, those who had experienced a split second of Yu Wanrou’s gaze when she swept her gaze across the audience towards Qin Lingyu felt their bodies stiffen up and turn numb slightly.

Such a pitiable beauty like her truly tempts a person to pull her into a warm embrace and give her a sense of security! Several male disciples exclaimed in their hearts.

It had to be said that Yu Wanrou had always known how to play to her strengths to stimulate the sympathy and affection in male cultivator’s hearts.

Jun Xiaomo watched Yu Wanrou’s act indifferently as she lightly lashed out with the whip in her hands.

Just then, the chief referee stood up and rang the bill in his hands – Ding ding!

“I hereby announce – the grand finals of the Lower Category battles begins now!”

As soon as the referee’s declaration of the commencement of battle resounded, Jun Xiaomo’s spirits flourished and she burst straight towards Yu Wanrou with an explosive attack as she brandished the whip in her hands.

Fast! Yu Wanrou was still immersed in her own thoughts, and her complacency meant that Jun Xiaomo’s surprise attack struck her squarely on her body. Her arms immediately swelled up.

“Don’t look so pitiful – it’s no use in this duel of ours. I’m not going to go easy on you if you’re not going to take this seriously.” Jun Xiaomo cautioned with a calm tone of voice and slightly raised brows. Her eyes were filled with a frigid gaze that almost seemed to penetrate deep into the depths of Yu Wanrou’s heart, dug out her innermost thoughts and exposed them to the world.

Damn you, Jun Xiaomo! Yu Wanrou’s heart decried. She no longer dared to be complacent, and she focused her mind completely on the battle at hand as well.

And it was only when she put her heart and mind into this battle that she truly discovered how fearsome Jun Xiaomo’s abilities were.

After the exchange of what must have been fifty blows, every single one of her attacks landed on nothing but air. Worse, Jun Xiaomo had but narrowly avoided every single one of these attacks by a hair’s breadth, and she came out completely unscathed.

Conversely, Jun Xiaomo made full use of the downtime between Yu Wanrou’s attacks to launch several whiplashes at her. Even though these strikes were not imbued with much spiritual energy and were therefore low on their offensive power, being struck by such blows was still incredibly painful and annoying!

Yu Wanrou bit down on her lower lips. Her glistening eyes seemed to be filled with fluid, as though tears were going to break out of the dam and pour out of her eyes in the very next moment.

While Jun Xiaomo was completely unconcerned about Yu Wanrou’s pitiful looks, the audience did not think the same way. In particular, the audience members seated closest to the arena who could see Yu Wanrou’s expressions clearly invariably thought that Jun Xiaomo had been far too heavy-handed with her attacks.

It must be because they’re love rivals! The audience members sighed in their hearts.

That said, Yu Wanrou discovered that whether she feigned a pitiable look or faced Jun Xiaomo squarely in battle, both approaches hardly did anything to give her an edge in the battle. Thus, Yu Wanrou could only press on and attempt to find an opening for herself in battle.

In fact, she thought to take a leaf out of Jun Xiaomo’s book and engage in a battle of attrition with Jun Xiaomo – her recovery pill had been immersed in the spirit spring waters, and it possessed the ability to fully replenish her body’s spiritual energy. She could rely on this to turn the tides of battle!

I’ll bet Jun Xiaomo doesn’t know about this trump card of mine! Yu Wanrou’s eyes darkened as she exclaimed in her heart.

Jun Xiaomo was indeed unaware of Yu Wanrou’s spirit spring and her spectral demiplane, as well as the spirit spring’s effect of replenishing her spiritual energy. Nevertheless, Jun Xiaomo also possessed a hidden trump card as well – and that was the nature of the true energy within her body.

One part of true energy could be converted into two parts of spiritual energy.

If Jun Xiaomo was unaware of Yu Wanrou’s hidden trump card, how could Yu Wanrou possibly be aware of Jun Xiaomo’s hidden trump card either?

Just like that, the grand finals also turned out to be the longest, most arduous battle among all of the Lower Category battles, and the grand finalists battled for close to six whole hours!

During these six hours, the audience members started off watching the grand finals with eager anticipation. Then, the eager anticipation turned into an anxiety laced with slight frustration as the audience began to wonder who would come out on top of the battle. Then, towards the end of the six hours, everyone had grown numb and weary, and the only thought on their mind was when this battle would finally end.

Towards the end of the battle, even Yu Wanrou began to grow incredibly frustrated and exasperated at Jun Xiaomo. Even though she did not have a good grasp on the precise amount of spiritual energy stored by a person at a specific level of Qi Mastery, she had nevertheless gradually begun to discover that Jun Xiaomo’s body also harboured an anomaly.

Otherwise, how could it be possible that Jun Xiaomo’s body had not been drained dry of her spiritual energy after such a long time? She’s only at the sixth level of Qi Mastery after all...

Could Jun Xiaomo’s body possess something like the spirit spring within her body as well?! Yu Wanrou bit down fierce on her lower lips as she suppressed the thoughts of that possibility – No! There can only be one special person, and that’s me! This world is not big enough for two people with unique, heaven-defying abilities.

Yu Wanrou tossed these considerations to the back of her mind and continued to compete in a frustrating and arduous battle with Jun Xiaomo. Her only hope was that the spiritual energy within Jun Xiaomo’s body would be depleted before hers – that was her only hope at victory.

On the other hand, Jun Xiaomo had discovered Yu Wanrou hidden trump card not long after she had consumed her recovery pill. Jun Xiaomo was already used to accurately assessing the remaining spiritual energy within a person’s body during combat. Based on her estimations, Yu Wanrou had consumed her recovery pill when her body was nearly completely drained of all its spiritual energies.

That said, she noticed that Yu Wanrou seemed to regain her vitality once more after consuming the recovery pill.

Thus, Jun Xiaomo drew the conclusion that Yu Wanrou’s recovery pill had the effect of replenishing her body’s spiritual energy and her vitality. As a result of that, Jun Xiaomo made it a point to be even more cautious and conservative about using the true energy within her body.

She knew that she would come out victorious as long as she had one modicum of true energy more than Yu Wanrou at the point of her depletion of energy.

And things turned out just the way Jun Xiaomo had expected it to. Just as Yu Wanrou had almost completely depleted the spiritual energy in her body a second time, Jun Xiaomo’s body was left with approximately one-tenth of the total amount of true energy within her body.

Yu Wanrou’s body was “almost completely drained” because her body still possessed a trace of spiritual energy left.

This residual spiritual energy was insufficient for unleashing a powerful spell, but it was more than sufficient to use a tiny spell, such as to create an ice blade or the like.

Jun Xiaomo’s whip lashed towards Yu Wanrou and struck her, sending her flying back and slamming into the ground.

“Stop! I beg you to stop!” Seeing that Jun Xiaomo had raised her whip again, Yu Wanrou’s eyes were filled with tears as she begged for her life.

The male cultivators in the audience pitied Yu Wanrou, and they all began to beg for mercy on her behalf as well, “That’s right, please stop! Mercy is a virtue. The little beauty has already been reduced to such a sorry state. Don’t make her into another Dai Yue, please.”

That’s right. From their perspective, Jun Xiaomo had been far too heavy-handed on Yu Wanrou. They felt like she had treated Yu Wanrou as though she were a second Dai Yue.

Hell truly hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. Several audience members remarked in their hearts.

Jun Xiaomo glanced towards the audience indifferently, before she heeded the audience’s requests and loosened her grip on her whip.

Just this moment, Yu Wanrou’s eyes flickered with a gleam and she operated the residual spiritual energy within her body once more and launched another attack towards Jun Xiaomo’s neck!

Yu Wanrou had only begged for mercy, but she had not displayed any intentions to “admit defeat” at all. Thus, the competition was technically still ongoing. If she were able to injure Jun Xiaomo severely enough with this one strike, she would still be able to take the victory in these grand finals.

And even if she were unable to injure Jun Xiaomo, the ice blade that she had congealed and sent flying towards Jun Xiaomo had been so covert and concealed from public sight that nobody in the audience would have noticed it. Thus, she could continue to pretend to be pitiful and make everyone think that Jun Xiaomo was a vicious person.

Yu Wanrou’s plan was almost perfect. But she had miscalculated the extent of Jun Xiaomo’s battle awareness and her combat intuition.

In that very moment when the ice blade was congealed and launched towards Jun Xiaomo’s neck, Jun Xiaomo tilted her body, and Yu Wanrou’s sneak attack with the ice blade was immediately exposed for all to see.

Jun Xiaomo brandished her whip once again and smashed Yu Wanrou’s ice blade to smithereens.

At this moment, the spiritual energy within Yu Wanrou’s body had truly and thoroughly been depleted, yet the result was not what Yu Wanrou had expected.

“See? It’s not that I’m not letting you off; but you’re not letting me off. I’ve already lowered my whip, but you still launched an attack at my neck with an ice blade – what’s the meaning of that?” Jun Xiaomo tapped her whip on the palm of her hand with a steady tempo as she demanded an answer.

Yu Wanrou knew that her plan had failed, and she sought to salvage her reputation. She lowered her head and displayed an appearance akin to a frightened sparrow as she stammered in “fear”, “I...I was just nervous and afraid that you would continue to attack me...”

“Oh? Is that so...” Jun Xiaomo nodded her head knowingly, raised her eyebrow before she slowly added, “Then let me be nervous and give you two harsh lashes of the whip too, alright? I’m afraid that you’ll sneakily attack me again...”

The audience members that had initially spoken up for Yu Wanrou grew taciturn as well because Yu Wanrou’s earlier conduct truly looked like an unadorned sneak attack.

That said, even though they had their suspicions in their hearts, they still bore some sympathy for a beauty like Yu Wanrou. Thus, they all looked towards Jun Xiaomo with bated breaths.

“I...I didn’t...” Yu Wanrou lifted her head suddenly and looked at Jun Xiaomo with aggrieved, reddened eyes that seemed to be filled with humiliation, as though Jun Xiaomo were framing and bullying her.

Jun Xiaomo was infuriated with Yu Wanrou’s pretentious display. She ferociously lashed out at the floor with her whip as she glared at Yu Wanrou and barked, “Don’t beat about the bust! Tell me – do you admit defeat?”

“I...” Yu Wanrou’s heart was incredibly unwilling! She found the words “admit defeat” extremely nauseating, and she simply couldn’t bring herself to say these words.

But the spiritual energy in her body had completely dried up. Under the rules of the competition, she was not allowed to consume a recovery pill more than once either.

Thus, even if she dragged on the battle, there was no way she would be able to turn the tides.

Jun Xiaomo did not urge Yu Wanrou either. She simply looked down from up high at Yu Wanrou as she lightly lashed out at the floor with her whip from time to time.

These frustrating smacking sounds from the whip became an undeniable pressure that weighed heavily on Yu Wanrou’s heart – she truly did not want to become another Dai Yue.

Even if she possessed a spirit spring in her body, she did not ever wish to appear in such a tragic state like Dai Yue did. She did not want to be reduced to a bloody pulp of flesh and gore as others carried her down the arena.

Tension filled the air in that few moments of silence, before Yu Wanrou finally steeled her resolve and made her decision. She knew that there was only one route for her to take, and that was –

“I admit defeat.” Yu Wanrou lowered her head and eked out these few words as she ferociously suppressed the humiliation and unwillingness in her heart.

Jun Xiaomo’s lips curled into a smile. She turned around and faced the panel of referees.

The chief referee stood up at the same time, before he faced the audience and declared –

“The victor of these grand finals, and the grand champion of the Lower Category battles is none other than....Dawn Sect, Heavenly Peak, Jun Xiaomo!”

This declaration was like a huge rock that left a heavy depression in the hearts of several people in the audience – He Zhang, the Dawn Sect’s Sect Elders, the people from the Eternal Summit Sect, and several other members of the audience who disliked Jun Xiaomo...

This massive rock that landed in their hearts even felt like it was scorching hot, stifling their hearts with immense amounts of frustration.

It was particularly so for the Dawn Sect’s Sect Elders. They had expected Jun Xiaomo to perish on the arena. Yet not only did Jun Xiaomo not perish, she had even lasted throughout the entire Lower Category battles and taken the title of champion!

This was completely unexpected! This was completely converse to their plans!

Faced with the commendations from the other sects, the faces of these Sect Elders began to stiffen and freeze up...